cs1311lecture22wdl.ppt.ppt

PolymorphismPure Object Oriented Programming Announcements Office Hours next Tuesday, April 4, 2000 will be from 1:00 - 2:00 p.m. instead of 3:00 - 4:00 p.m. On the homework that’s due Friday Problem 2 requires inheritance! Polymorphism Scenarios A veterinarians algorithm might have a list of animals, but each one needs different food or care… we want ONE information system to track all of this without complex logic for each individual kind of animal. A car dealership sells many different types of cars with different features, but each has a price and quantity in stock. A registration system might treat in-state students differently from out-of-state students, graduate students differently from undergraduates, etc. A graphical user interface (GUI) e.g. Windows needs to puts lots of simlar widgets on screen... Motivation We’d like to be able to manage objects of different kinds of classes. Since classes within a class hierarchy often share common methods and attributes, we’d like to make use of this fact to make our algorithms simpler. Polymorphism Defined The ability to take on different forms. Manipulate objects of various classes, and invoke methods on an object without knowing that object’s type. A Class Hierarchy A Polymorphic Example Polymorphism Explained MyAnimal - MyMutt seems incorrect. The left and right hand side of the assignment seem to not match; or do they? Since Mutt inherits from Dog, and Dog inherits from Animal, then MyMutt is at all times a Mutt, a Dog, and an Animal. Thus the assignment statement is perfectly valid. This makes logical (“real world”) sense. An Illegal Example We are able to assign an object of a sub-class into an object of a super-class as in: MyAnimal - MyMutt But the reverse is not true. We can’t assign a superclass object into a sub-class object. MyMutt - MyAnimal // illegal Method Calls and Polymorphism Assume the Dog class inherits the Animal class, redefining the “MakeNoise” method. Consider the followin